It was just about thirty years ago that we moved in. Coming from a few years away in impeccably, obliviously Anglophone North Toronto, it was a change to suddenly hear nothing but French on the street. The older child was three and a half in September 1989, the younger not quite two. This part of Montreal is called La Petite Patrie. On the eve of leaving it, I still don’t know why. It’s just west of the much better-known borough called Rosemont; just east and south of the Jean-Talon market and Little Italy; and just the wrong (north) side of the track. It’s really not anywhere in particular, except that it has a peculiar name all its own.
